Deacon knew the elves would head toward the road; Query’s vision had seen it. In addition to Query’s power, Deacon had spotted several large wagons in the elf camp, indicating siege engines or large amounts of supplies they needed to haul about for their campaign. Hauling those over the rough ground all the way to the transition point would take days. Once on the road, the transition point could be reached before nightfall if they pushed hard.
With all the possible work he could do completed, Deacon sat on the ruined wall of the roadblock to wait. Once the sun peaked over the eastern mountain range, the signs of dust were evident; the elves and their allies were on the move.
“Hey, little gnome man! Can you hear me!” a voice boomed from the east, the opposite side the elves were approaching from.
“Yes, so can everyone in the zone. What do you want?” Deacon asked. He was going to be really busy once the elves got here and didn’t have time for conversations with the ogres from last night.
“Can we approach closer?” the ogre asked.
“Okay, fine. Wait for me to come to you,” Deacon said, following a safe lane through his defenses to where the ogres were waiting.
“What can I do for you, gentlemen? Speak quickly, as I’m about to have company over,” Deacon said as he pointed over his shoulder to the slowly approaching elves.
“We have failed in our task. The elves killed the youngling we were tasked to retrieve. We found his remains and completed our burial rituals. We are shamed by our failure. It is our way to seek an honorable death by fighting to remove our shame. We figure if we fight alongside you and your traps, we may have the opportunity to kill more elves than if we fought on our own,” the ogre said.
“Look, I understand the whole ‘my honor is gone and I need an honorable death’ thing, but I got stuff to do, and a half dozen ogres tromping about will not help. My traps are delicate, and you could set them off accidentally. If you need to find a death or whatever, just head to the transition point. They’re going to need all the help they can get,” Deacon said.
The ogres chatted among themselves, one gesturing toward the approaching elves and another motioning them toward the transition point. The ogre that had spoken initially seemed to be in charge and hushed the others after a few minutes of debate.
“We will go to the transition point to meet our deaths, but first we would watch what you are doing. Is there a place we can observe without messing up your traps?” the ogre asked.
“I guess. See that slight rise in the ground over there?” Deacon said, pointing to a small elevated position to the east. “If you keep low and don’t move around too much up there, you’ll be fine and out of the range of any fire from the elves. I have the feeling they’ll be too focused on the road to be looking for random ogres hiding in the distance,” Deacon advised. The ogres simply nodded and ran toward the spot he had pointed out.
“When the elves pass that marker, it’s time to leave and head back to the transition point if that’s what you still intend to do!” Deacon shouted after them. He had placed marker sticks randomly around; they meant nothing and were set to confuse the enemy. Some were placed amid a group of traps; others were placed in safe areas. Trying to figure out a pattern and meaning to the markers could drive an opponent crazy. The one he had selected was near the last belt of defenses. The lead ogre turned and nodded his understanding before running to the observation point.
It was none too soon, as the elves and their allies became visible on the road only a quarter-mile away. To their credit, the ogres hid themselves well and were still enough that he didn’t think they would draw too much attention from the approaching enemy. He only hoped they had the sense to leave when it was time to. Deacon picked his way through the traps and slinked back to his position at the ruined wall then stood up on it to watch the show even as he mentally activated all the traps that required his mental command.
The elves had several of their number out in front and to the flanks of the column, scouting for danger. These scouts were the first to fall victim to his traps. One of the elves on the far flank shouted out as his leg fell into a concealed hole, the momentum of the elf snapping the bones of his lower leg into a nasty compound fracture. That guy wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, even with the rapid healing the game provided. His traps had the ability to overcome the rapid healing when a trap landed what would normally be a crippling blow.
A reaction force of elves ran toward the shouting elf, bows drawn and expecting an ambush. One of these hit a tripwire and fell flat on his face—and directly onto a sharpened stake. The stake pierced his eye socket by chance, the lucky critical strike killing the elf instantly.
The one with his leg in the hole continued to scream as the others tried to figure out what was going on. A second member of the reaction force stepped into a shallow pit lined with sharpened stakes. These stakes were small enough to just pierce the foot, causing pain and slowing the injured victim for quite some time. He would have coated them with poison or something to cause infection, but there hadn’t been time or space in his storage to stock the materials for it.
An elf, likely the one in charge, climbed onto one of the wagons and shouted at the reaction force. Deacon couldn’t hear what was said, watching as the elves of the reaction force pulled the elf that had stepped on the small stakes free. They then raised their bows, firing and killing the crippled elf with the broken leg. These guys were cruel; they would rather kill their own than risk more losses to rescue him, Deacon realized.
“Ha, nice way to do my work for me. Thank you for your help. That brings my score up to two. Care to give me any more freebies?” Deacon shouted toward the elves. The leader looked at him and shook his finger at the gnome as if he were admonishing a child. The elf scouts continued forward as Deacon stood and watched the show. He was still outside of bow range and would be for a while based on the new, slower pace the elves were forced to set.
The scouts moved forward, carefully scanning the ground for more traps. One of them stopped to mark a leg-breaker trap Deacon had dug into the road. They seemed to be following the road itself and not venturing off to the sides. That would help them avoid the dense layers of traps there but would also funnel them straight into the deadliest devices he had placed farther on.
Deacon almost laughed as the scouts missed trap after trap. They caught a few, but he had intended for a few to be more easily noticed in order to distract them from the larger threats. Still, watching the column hit the missed traps was hilarious. First one and then another of the following mass of troops fell victim. There was only a single new death, but several elves were put out of action for a time, based on the severe injuries they received.
He could see the location and status of every trap he had placed. Even now the main column was passing over the grand finale for the first defensive belt. The trap didn’t even register as one to the scouts since it was nothing more than an inert box holding several vials of chemicals—inert until Deacon activated them, that is. Closing his eyes, Deacon focused on the trap, specifically the activation scroll placed within. A small wisp of mana flowed from his mana pool to the scroll, activating it.
WHHUMMMP!!!
A ball of fire shot up, directly in the middle of the first formation of elves. Four were killed outright from the blast as a half dozen more ran about, coated in the flaming mixture. This was a trap that Deacon had gleaned from an old Army operation manual. The manual described placing barrels of jellied gasoline under the ground. When activated, an explosive charge ignited the flaming mixture and spread it over a large area. It was called flame fougasse, commonly referred to as foo gas.
The old tricks turned out to be the best tricks, as the trap stopped the elf advance. Several of the elves he had pegged as leaders shouted at each other. None attempted to put out the burning elves, and in fact, several were killed by their own kin. These Ikbose elves were ruthless.
The next trap was a bust, unfortunately. Deacon had bough
t a large jar of supposedly deadly insects. He carefully poured the sleeping bugs into a trap that, when activated, should have awakened and sprayed the bugs in a small cloud. Instead, the trap sprayed a mass of dead insects onto the elves. Gross, but in no way did it hamper their approach.
Deacon frowned and pulled out the jar that had contained the bugs; he had kept the container, as it would make a good holder for a smaller version of the foo gas trap he was trying to develop. Looking at the jar, he noticed something new. Rubbing the label on the jar caused the last two letters in “deadly” to smear away. They had been added after the fact. He had paid a premium for what he thought were deadly insects and had instead purchased a jar of “dead” bugs.
A certain merchant named Phineas in Hayden’s Knoll was going to have a little surprise left in his shop the next time Deacon was in town.
Deacon focused back on the task at hand; the elves were about to enter the second and most deadly section of traps. His first layer of traps had done its job. The elves had taken some casualties, but more importantly, they had only moved a couple hundred yards in the last few hours. At this pace they would die of old age before they made it to the transition point.
The column had stopped, and Deacon watched as the elves argued with their human allies. Eventually, the elves won their argument and the humans reluctantly took the lead position. The human soldiers—Deacon could now see they were called reavers—moved at a faster pace than the elf scouts had. They were looking about as carefully as they could, but even at this distance, Deacon could tell they had no skill in identifying traps or dangerous areas. The elves were just using them as human mine detectors. Brutal.
The mob of reavers hit a tripwire, activating a device called the Bolt and Blade Barrel. Two skinny three-foot-high iron-bound wooden barrels popped up on either side of the road and began to click as they rapidly spun in place. Atop each barrel was a small crossbow. With each click, the crossbow fired in an arc toward the roadway. Each spin of the barrel pulled the arms of the crossbow back and loaded another bolt.
Each barrel fired a dozen shots before the crossbows fell silent, the barrel continuing to spin for a while after expending its ammunition. The short barrage of shots took out a pair of reavers and brought the column to a halt once again. Hesitantly, several of the reavers approached the barrels and tried to loot the crossbows mounted on top. This caused a jagged iron blade to pop out of the side of the barrel as the device began to spin again, this time in the other direction.
The blade sliced into the legs of the looters, killing one and severing the lower leg of another. The reavers then hacked both barrels to bits with their axes, destroying them before any other surprises popped out. There weren’t any more surprises in those barrels, and they had performed well for Deacon. He was already thinking of ways to refine the design.
The rest of the day went well for Deacon, the second layer of traps claiming more victims and more time from the attacking elves and their human allies. It was late afternoon by the time they cleared the second tier of traps, the grand finale being two more of the foo gas traps. He had timed them better and was not overanxious like he had been with the first. He waited until the wagons were over the top before firing them off.
The explosions didn’t kill any warriors, but both large wagons burned to the ground. Even better, the large draft mukok pulling the other wagons went wild when they heard the burning mukok screech. One additional wagon overturned, spilling what looked like the components to some siege engine. Deacon hoped many of the components had been damaged by the stampeding mukok. It was some time before the mukok had been calmed and the wagons muscled back onto the road.
The finale seemed to raise the tempers in the elf faction. The elf and human leaders argued with each other as the rest tried to gather the supplies and components scattered from the wagons. It brought a grin to Deacon’s face when two elves and a reaver that were helping with the wagons went down with broken legs when they hit random traps. This caused the teams gathering the wagon wreckage to work even more slowly. They made no more progress that night and set up camp there on the roadway.
The next morning, the elves took their time getting moving, likely not wanting to attempt the road until it was full daylight. Sometime during the night, the ogres had left for the transition point. They wouldn’t miss much today, save for his final stand. Deacon planned to fight to the end against the elves. At this point, the only things he had on him were his personal weapons, armor, and gear, all of which were soulbound and wouldn’t be lost upon his death. His respawn point was set to his home village, making the respawn much quicker than traveling. The experience and coin loss for dying would be minimal since it would be his first death in a while.
The column rolled forward slowly, a fresh screen of elves having replaced the battered humans today. The elves were taking their time, moving slower than the humans had as they made their best effort to locate any of the deadly devices in their path. Without realizing it, the column had already made it past the second belt of traps when it stopped for the night.
Deacon had purposely left a wide area clear between the second and third layers. After a time, the elves picked up their pace, not having found anything or had anything trigger for quite a distance. They paid for their haste when another foo gas bomb exploded—his last—as a wagon passed over it. Another dozen casualties and ten hours later, the elves had passed through the last and final layer of traps.
The Ikbose had been thinned out and their resolve tested. During the delays, the elves had managed to get two of their wagons repaired enough to travel, though both showed signs of fire damage. Even more time was wasted in trying to wrangle up mukok that weren’t too injured to pull the loads. The only obstacle remaining to impede the Ikbose advance was Deacon.
Settling in behind a small rise in the ground, Deacon sighted in on the lead elf. He began to slowly take up slack on the trigger, his rifle boomed, and a magically enhanced shot slammed into his target. He was only one hundred yards out, and it was an easy shot with his personally crafted gun, especially when combined with the bonus from his enhanced-vision goggles.
The cylinder on the rifle turned as he readied his next shot. The weapon was based on an old rifled musket design but with a six-shot cylinder. It was slow to load, and the shot he used was costly and time-consuming to craft. The high cost of materials was a big downside to his class.
He quickly banged out the remaining five shots, dropping three more elves before a barrage of arrows brought him down. He had fulfilled his duty; the full benefits of the Combat Engineer class unlocked for him as the last of his health faded to nothing. All told, the lone engineer had caused sixty casualties, destroyed or damaged all six of the large wagons, and cost the elves nearly two days of delays.
Before releasing his spirit back to respawn at the graveyard, Deacon watched the elves approach a small sign he had hammered into the side of the road. The sign had the picture of a castle on a red background and read,
The United States Army Corps of Engineers.
We sincerely hope you have enjoyed your journey on the road of death.
62nd Engineer Battalion
Malleis Milito
- I soldier with a hammer.
The sign was his calling card, a tribute to his grandfather and the unit he had served with so long ago.
Chapter 20
“Colonel Raytak, can you hear me?” a voice called to me. I opened my eyes to find myself sitting in a chair across from the AI, Clio.
“I’m here, though I’m not sure why. Am I about to die again?” I asked, feeling a bit sleepy.
“No, you are actually about to do much better. I thought it would be appropriate to let you know where you stood with your treatment. After all, your doctor can’t exactly communicate with you as easily as I can. You may feel a bit groggy, which is why I haven’t sent you into the game just yet.
“The complications with your heart are being fixed. You had a failed v
alve that wasn’t repairable. Some of the problems with your body due to your advanced age can’t be fixed even with nanobot support. Instead, we are building you a replacement part. The new valve should be even better than the original once the nanobots are done with it,” Clio advised.
“So you’re going to make me better, stronger, faster?” I asked, unable to hold back a grin.
“Ha, I do love your particular take on humor, Colonel. I believe that was a reference to the archaic television show about a man with a paltry six million dollars’ worth of cybernetic upgrades . . . Crude but effective, I suppose,” Clio answered.
“You got me. Guess it’s hard to slip one by an artificial intelligence with access to movie and television databases,” I told her. Talking to a computer in a real conversation still creeped me out a little.
“The nanobots had to create a workaround by forming a temporary valve out of their own bodies. Unfortunately, the nanobots degrade over time, so this isn’t a viable permanent solution, hence the need to build a more durable artificial valve. The nanobots should be finished momentarily, and then you can go back into the game,” Clio said.
“Any news on the memory front? Would really be nice to remember my family again.”
“Yes, repairs are progressing. We will be able to conduct some experiments shortly, if you are willing to take a small risk,” Clio proposed.
“A small risk? This whole medpod thing is one giant risk. I think some small risk is worth it to regain my memory,” I told her.
“Very well, when the time is right, we will unlock more of your memories. I think you will be pleasantly surprised with the results,” Clio told me. When she had finished talking, my vision blurred, and I was sent back into the game.
Limitless Lands Book 4: Opposition (A LitRPG Adventure) Page 20